There is a certain hypocrisy in our country where politicians simply do not present themselves as religious believers even if they are. Instead they are de-humanised and projected as caricatures. This is foolish
That Narendra Modi has refused to wear an Islamic skull cap has been brought up repeatedly in this election. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has described Mr Modi’s decision an “unmistakable signal…of his bias and bigotry”. On his part, Mr Modi has dismissed such symbolism as ultimately hollow and linked it to “a bad practice of appeasement [that] has crept into Indian politics”. “My job”, he said in an interview, “is to respect all religions and traditions of all. I live my tradition and respect traditions of others. This is why I cannot fool people by posing for photographs wearing a [skull] cap.”
What is the implication of thisIJ India is not used to a national politician who openly and unabashedly says he is a believer. This may sound surprising in a country that is so religious, where a vast majority go to places of worship — temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras and so on — and where belief in God and religious observance is high. The reason for this is the template of secularism that has been absorbed by the political establishment in Delhi — and urged and sanctified by the media and intellectual classes — rests on a denial of the leader’s own, personal religious inclinations. This is paradoxical, given the role of religious themes in Indian politics, but is not fundamentally untrue. Mr Modi is challenging this template.
What are the origins of this templateIJ They go back to Jawaharlal Nehru, who was an atheist and condescending in his attitude towards religiosity. To be fair, this was not just a political act; it defined his private life as well and was a strand in his complicated relationship with his wife Kamala. Nehru’s successors adopted the exterior of his non-religious persona without absorbing the inner content. While Indira Gandhi did visit temples — particularly in the final, Hindu phase of her career — she was careful not to disturb her positioning as someone essentially above denominational allegiance.
The Nehru-Gandhi family has been located by the Congress in a realm removed from ordinary caste and religious identities, as a sort of arbiter of justice and good behaviour between different, competing groups, and, therefore, living in a bubble that sequesters it from ordinary Indian lives, families, habits, biases and prejudices. Even when a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family goes to a religious site — Sonia Gandhi taking a dip at the Kumbh Mela in 2001, or visits to Ajmer Sharif — it is a political rather than religious act, a cute, choreographed ritual, suggestive that the family is respecting the faith of others (the proverbial ‘countless millions’) rather than responding to an inner urging.
Perhaps there is no ‘inner urging’. It is perfectly possible and legitimate for individual politicians, whether from the Nehru-Gandhi family, the Congress or other parties, to be atheistic or agnostic or cold to the call of religion. There is absolutely nothing wrong in that. However, it stands to reason that the mimicking of Nehru — without necessarily sharing his beliefs or absence thereof — has resulted in a certain hypocrisy, where politicians simply do not present themselves as religious believers even if they are. Instead they are de-humanised and projected as caricatures. This makes little sense in a country that is, to iterate, just so religious and so full of people who practise their faith.
What explains this denialismIJ Is it fear that bringing one’s personal faith into the public sphere will lead to charges of contaminating politics with religious and denominational prejudicesIJ This need not be so, but it would take a strong-hearted politician to make that distinction. Unfortunately, too few do. Most politicians take the line of least resistance and are almost apologetic about their personal piety, if any, and wary of being accused of ‘doing God’.
There is an intellectual ecosystem waiting to excommunicate — and that word is used advisedly — any politician who says he prays every day and accepts a higher power. In the West, Mr Barack Obama can praise health workers for doing “God’s work”, Mr Tony Blair can convert to Catholicism (admittedly after he stepped down as Prime Minister) and Mr David Cameron can insist he believes in God. Yet, in India there is diffidence in doing similarly, even if a politician may want to.
As such, in a country that is so deeply religious, we don’t discuss or study (in our universities) religion and theology in any meaningful manner. Politicians either reduce religion to high-sounding philosophy, quoting recondite Upanishadic shlokas that can mean anything depending on the context in which you use them, or they resort to base tokenism: Collecting skull caps and saropas, placing chadars and bowing in the direction of temples almost by reflex.
Even the BJP is not immune to this. While there is a school in the Hindu right that distinguishes between political Hinduism and religious practice — Vinayak Savarkar himself was a well-known atheist — it has been comical on occasion to see leading BJP politicians make statements about, say, Ayodhya, and then go out of their way to stress the irrelevant point that they themselves are not ritualistic or even strong believers. A senior politician in India is expected to be not just above religions — which a public official and/or a Prime Minister needs to be — but above religion itself, even in a private capacity.
Mr Modi refuses to conform to this straitjacket. To understood where he is coming from consider his views on the great cataclysm of 1857, an event he has brought up at least twice in speeches over the past few months. The war of 1857 can be explained in many ways and certainly there were several triggers. Nevertheless the provocation of the East India Company issuing its soldiers cartridges greased with beef and pork fat — the so-called ‘kartoos affair’ — remains the most popular and iconic illustration of contemporary Indian grievance.
In the Indian imagination, Hindus and Muslims prayed side and by side — in their traditions, to their gods — and fought side by side to avenge an insult to their faith. Hindus recognised pork fat was a slight to Muslims and Muslims rejected beef fat as obviously unacceptable to Hindus. They didn’t pick and choose but respected each other’s living traditions. In that sense, 1857 is a compelling representation of the importance of religion, religiosity, faith and piety in Indian society.
Even so, among politicians and historians alike, the religious character of the uprising is often discounted and convoluted theories of ‘anti-imperialism’, ‘death throes of feudalism’ and ‘nascent nationalism’ are pushed. This is part of our received wisdom of religious denial.
Mr Modi offers a break from this. He argues religious concord — between Hindus and Muslims for instance — cannot come by pretending there are no differences and eulogising chameleonic politicians who change costumes at the drop of a hat, depending on the congregation. He argues concord can come by admitting and celebrating that there are different traditions and finding space and mutual respect for these. That is why he refuses to be bludgeoned and bullied into wearing that skull cap.
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